Hi friends,
It’s time for a quick history lesson about women, money, and activism:
Abolitionist women in Boston held huge Anti-Slavery Fairs to raise money to print anti-slavery publications and fund the speaking tours that helped to convince people across the nation to oppose slavery. Women organized the sale of items produced and donated by women — clothing, quilts, and other crafts — and left us the terrible legacy of bake sales. I like to bake, I love baked goods, AND I hate bake sales.
The Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom produced this great poster in 1979; it hung in my friend’s dorm room when we were in college in the early 80s.
Women still do the heavy lifting of fundraising and leadership in so many of the causes we are fighting for today. On Wednesday, I’m going to Albany with NY Caring Majority to win Fair Pay for Home Care. Transporting activists in wheelchairs and with other special needs is expensive and everyone who wants to go can get on the bus.
Give to JFREJ’s Caring Majority Campaign to help fund Fair Pay direct action!
The requests for money from politicians drive some folks crazy, which is completely understandable. The dire language and ugly graphics don’t help. US elections have become so expensive and corrupted by dark money that it can also feel that any amount you can contribute is not consequential.
Our contributions are consequential if we target our donations to women of color, who typically struggle to raise funds and often eschew the PAC money that requires other candidates to sell their souls.
Black women, Latina women, Indigenous women, and Asian and Pacific Islander women face unique difficulties raising money compared to their white and male counterparts, according to previous research. This is notably apparent when looking at large donations, especially for Black women. Black women raised the least amount across all race and gender categories.
Support Cori Bush, AOC, Ayanna Pressley, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Brittany Ramos DeBarros for Congress.
If you prefer to donate time, this is a great year to start (or resume) writing postcards. I love writing postcards because they are not intrusive; they pass from my hand to someone else’s (in a way that we now know is not likely to infect anyone AND that feels to me like connection), and they provide useful information.
One study found that postcards increased turnout more than a typical canvass, in which folks go door to door. The .04 increase in turnout adds up, especially in tight races, and especially when we send a high volume of postcards.
Join Th!rd Act’s voter mobilization in Arizona and Pennsylvania by writing postcards to remind voters to request their mail-in ballots.
If you prefer to do your politics in person, you can round up signatures for Ana Maria Archila, who is running for Lieutenant Governor in NYS. As you may recall, both Kathy Hochul and David Paterson served as Lieutenant Governors before being elevated to governor following scandals. In this respect, the lieutenant is an important position.
Archila, who is aligned with the progressive politics of Jumaane Williams, is challenging Brian Benjamin. Here’s a fun fact:
In New York, the governor and lieutenant governor compete separately in the primary, creating an opportunity for someone unaligned with the top of the ticket to sneak through.
It’s not implausible that Archila could end up as Hochul’s lieutenant governor next year.
Archila, who has worked at the Center for Popular Democracy for years, is the human rights activist and sexual assault survivor who rose to national prominence when she held an elevator door open to challenge Senator Jeff Flake’s support for Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.
[An aside: Has anyone missed the irony of the harsh criticism of Ketanji Brown Jackson for her sentencing decisions in cases where people looked at child pornography? There are men accused of perpetrating sexual harassment and sexual assault who are on the Supreme Court.]
Contact Daniel Coates at coates@anamariaforny.com if you want to collect signatures to get Ana Maria Archila on the ballot. You can donate to her campaign, too.
Demand for US fuel in Europe has gone way up because of Russia’s war in the Ukraine.
Ship-position data from MarineTraffic shows an armada of ships full of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) now en route to Europe. Only a small minority of U.S. cargoes are destined for Asia.
Far more US ships are carrying LNG to Europe than to Asia. This represents the biggest shift in Europe’s energy supply since the end of World War II.
Call on the Biden Administration to fight climate change AND authoritarianism with massive investments in clean energy.
Last Tuesday was World Water Day, which is devoted to the protection of groundwater, which is most of the world’s liquid freshwater. Generally, I don’t abide the calendar of special days and months, however I do feel a special, year-round connection to the protection of water.
The governor’s budget includes $4 billion for the protection and regulation of wetlands, more than any previous budget in New York’s history. The Assembly and Senate are proposing even larger investments ($5 billion and $6 billion respectively).
Voice your support for the protection of NYS’s freshwater wetlands. This 15-second (!) action is from NY Audubon.
A survey of Asian seniors released Tuesday by Asian American Federation found that 75 percent fear leaving their homes due to the anti-Asian violence that has plagued the city.
State Assemblyman Ron Kim has proposed a state of emergency. AssemblywomanYuh-Line Niou has noted that Asian Americans do not hold positions of leadership in the NYPD and that there are too few police with the language skills to be responsive to Asian New Yorkers.
Jennifer Wu, a partner at law firm that represents several victims of anti-Asian violence, said the hate crime law should be rewritten to remove the emphasis on the language that perpetrators use, which sometimes makes it difficult to prove in court.
But she said for many victims, especially those who are lower-income or undocumented immigrants, hate crime charges are low on their list of concerns after an attack. “Their first concern is health care, and their next concern is finances if they can’t work. And then they have a concern about immigration,” she said.
The frustration with inaction in Congress
to make immigration reforms to modernize the immigration system and provide permanent status to millions of undocumented workers and their families
has led a variety of groups to call on Biden to use his executive authority
to protect essential workers, farmworkers, and other communities that have kept the country running through the pandemic.
Tell the president to use his executive authority to provide protections to immigrant communities. This ready-made action will take less than a minute.
Report and describe incidents of Anti-Asian harassment at Stand Against Hatred.
Once again, I want to encourage you to look at a resource from the Center for Urban Pedagogy and Hollaback, which offers a very detailed discussion of what to do if we witness harassment of any kind.
Read and share SHOW UP: Your guide to bystander intervention.
Have a good day!
with love,
L